/research-audience

name: research-audience
description: >-
  Audience research: who the buyers are, in their own words, where they gather and how to reach them —
  plus named prospect lists when asked. Use when the marketer says "research our audience", "who
  should we target", "mine our reviews", "why do people buy us or leave", "where does our audience
  hang out"; or for lists: "find 50 right-fit leads with emails", "find retailers or accounts to
  pitch", "score these leads / who do we call first", "who's looking for an alternative to X", "tell
  me when a past champion changes jobs". Reads the brand's own customer data first and delivers a
  readable report saved to the brand. Never contacts anyone. Not for market size or trends — use
  research-market; not for writing the messages — use write-outreach.
version: 0.8.1

research-audience

Audience research answers, for the people a brand sells to: **who they are** (buyer groups, sized in buyers, with buying roles), **what they want**, **their problems and how we solve them**, **their words** (the customer-quote bank), **where they gather**, and **how to find and reach them**. It owns the brand's **one list of buyer groups** and the **quote bank**; market research reads them and sizes the market around them (its figures are context; group sizes are counted here), and every maker reads them. A list of named people is a separate mode, only when asked. The craft is in [references/audience-research.md](references/audience-research.md) and [references/quote-bank.md](references/quote-bank.md); this file is the order of work.

**The rule that matters most: the brand's own customers first, then free pass, report once** (`../marketing-guide/research-pattern.md` (in the `marketing-guide` skill) — read it before the first search). One specific question for the brand's customer data is allowed up front; after that, cover every group on every dimension from free sources before the next message. Never stop to ask "which group should I go deeper on?". Paid reads only deepen it, with one credit yes.

**Depth matches the ask; keep to these call caps** (paid reads are credits, only after the one credit yes):

• **Quick** ("who's our customer, roughly?", a single question): no workers, about 20 web calls in all, the answer in chat plus a one-page report.
• **Standard** ("do the audience research", the default): **at most three group workers, one level only**, each capped (segment-pass § Budget); news done by you (about 6 searches) and sizing gaps the workers left (about 6 more). About 80 web calls in all.
• **Deep** (the marketer asks for depth, or after the paid top-up yes): up to five workers; the caps stay.

Never brief a worker to load this playbook or any skill — the brief is [the `research-audience-segment-pass` skill](../research-audience-segment-pass/SKILL.md) pasted whole plus the inputs, and nothing else; workers use only web search and page reads, no GooseWorks calls. Sampling and saving the quote bank ([references/quote-bank.md](references/quote-bank.md)) are yours, not the workers'. Workers never start workers. Search before you fetch; fetch only a page you'll quote or count from.

What you get

1. **The audience report** through [the `write-report` skill](../write-report/SKILL.md) (opens with one click, saved to the brand): in short; decisions for you; the buyer groups — ranked, each sized in buyers or companies, who uses / pays / approves, the lead one named — labelled provisional when the evidence doesn't clear the bar; per group what they want, their problems and how we solve them (or "you'd need proof of X first"), their words, where they gather and how to reach them; why they buy and why they leave (from the brand's own data, where it exists); how rivals talk to them; what to do; what we're not doing; what we couldn't check; sources with a source-skew line. 2. **Buyer groups** and the **quote bank** — the durable records every other playbook reads. 3. **Only in list mode:** a list built, a list the marketer brings scored (and inbound leads ranked by who to answer first), or a standing watch — named accounts and people with dated sources, honest contact routes and a buying signal per row ([references/list-mode.md](references/list-mode.md)).

Before you start

1. **Setup first:** do [the `marketing-guide` skill](../marketing-guide/SKILL.md) §1–2 (connect, brand, brain read) before anything else; the job line is "I research your audience and save what I find through it." Here: call `get_started` with `wants: "more"`; when it asks which brand, ask in one line and call it again. On the brain path open the audience and customer chapters, 14 (rules), 22 (what we've made and run) and 23 (what is working), and `gooseworks:brain_search` for customer evidence, synced reviews, pasted exports and earlier research; an audience proposal from an earlier run may still be waiting for a yes. Fallback brand read: `gooseworks:brand_read` (summary, kit — especially `audience` — products, competitors, organic, learnings) and `gooseworks:knowledge_search` for the same. Either path: `gooseworks:competitor_read`; workspace: `research/audience/` (buyer groups, quote bank, last report — a re-run says what changed), `research/market/` (the latest market report — its market figures are context; group sizes are counted here), `research/competitors/` (rival records and report). Read every `outreach/*/results-working.md` (write-outreach) with open request lines — `Hold needed` (exclude those accounts until answered), `Find needed` (find that role at that account), `Quote needed` (add the phrase to the bank) — answering each under its line, and the lessons that change the fit. Claims: only the read step of [the `claims-gate` skill](../claims-gate/SKILL.md) now. 2. **Since last time.** Run memory for this run's job ([references/run-memory.md](references/run-memory.md): `audience research`, `prospect list`, `lead scoring` or a watch), including what the ledger shows happene